MY LITTLE PONY: THE MOVIE (2017) review

I’m going to take a wild guess here and say that I’m not the target audience. Even as a kid, I was never into My Little Pony, the toys, or the show. For obvious reasons (I’m a dude). But fast forward to the present day, there’s a revival series, and I’m… surprisingly hearing good things about this show. In the sense of… even adults were watching this show. I have to admit, judging from the trailer I watched, and YouTube’s Cinema Snob’s review of the original My Little Pony film, this movie does look far less kiddie pandering and has a lot more personality to it. I can’t say if it’s still something that I’d be into, but I guess that’s why I do these reviews, right?

Now for the crew. Directing, we have Jayson Thiessen, known for a ton of My Little Pony projects. Red Flag, a total of three writers: Meghan McCarthy (other My Little Pony projects), Rita Hsiao (TOY STORY 2 [1999], MULAN [1998], and the upcoming DISENCHANTED [2019]), and Michael Vogel (other My Little Pony Projects). The composer for the score is Daniel Ingram, known for other kids TV shows. Finally, and… this animated movie has a cinematographer? Anyway, the… cinematographer is Anthony Di Ninno, known for… another animated film, RATCHET & CLANK (2016).

Overall, I can’t say I’m excited or all that interested.

This is my honest opinion of: MY LITTLE PONY: THE MOVIE

(SUMMARY)

The ponies of the magical land of Equestria are setting up for a Friendship Festival, all being organized by Princess Twilight Sparkle (voiced by Tara Strong), and is set to be the party of the ages. However, preparations are interrupted by a storm, created by a rogue unicorn named Tempest Shadow (voiced by Emily Blunt), leading the armies of the evil Storm King (voiced by Liev Schreiber), who wants the magic of the ponies and their rulers. The ponies are attacked, but Twilight and a small group of her friends manage to escape, setting out to look for help from their fabled cousins, the hippogriffs.

(REVIEW)

Big shock, I wasn’t into the movie.

First off, with some strange exceptions, this… doesn’t look like it should be a theatrical release. Not that I’m any particular expert on animated films, but I couldn’t help but feel like the movie just looked like an episode of a TV show. It’s not necessarily bad, per se, but it does look cheap. But like I said, there’s some weird exceptions. There are some moments that have good animation, but when the movie tries to blend the lesser animation with the better animation, it’s really distracting.

It’s obvious that this was made for little kids. The story’s been done, the characters are copy and paste, it’s not particularly funny, the songs are forgettable, and there’s probably more than a few plot points that come and don’t really go anywhere or get any real development. I’m pretty sure at some point, I fell asleep, but I don’t think I missed much. Many of the core pony characters feel way too indistinguishable from each other, each just looking pretty with big eyes and big smiles. At least as far as personalities are concerned. Oh sure, you can tell me, there’s the shy one, there’s the vain one, there’s the hyper one, there’s the cowgirl one, and all that jazz, but ultimately, those are descriptions and traits. Not personalities.

But… I won’t completely trash the movie. There are admittedly a couple of elements that I didn’t hate. Chief among these is Pinky Pie (voiced by Andrea Libman), who is delightfully insane. She is completely over-the-top in everything that she is and does. From crazy eyes in a battle scene, to eruptions of happiness during… well, any other scene she’s in. I can see others being more annoyed by her, and I won’t ever argue that, she’ll be a hit or miss for any adult, but for me, I enjoyed her enough. And on the opposite side of the spectrum, there’s Blunt, who is trying really hard to be sinister and it kind of works. I wish she was a little more sarcastic and cynical to give the adults someone to identify with, but I enjoyed her more than I probably should have.

And I do get a tickle out of seeing Tara Strong, one of the greatest voice actresses today, being the star of a theatrically released movie. So in a way, through all the annoyances and nauseating talks of friendship, it was worth seeing it just for that.

Overall, I don’t think it’s a good film. But let’s face it, this movie isn’t for me. It’s for little kids and its fanbase. It’s innocent enough, but if your kids are bugging you to see it, find a cheap theater near you. Otherwise, for you adults… well, you’re either a weirdo for wanting to see it, or you’ve already made your decision not to and I’m not going to try to convince you to see it. It’s not the most god-awful animated film I’ve sat through, I don’t even think it’s bad, but, no duh, it’s not for me.